Want to help brew a Reuben’s beer?
On Tuesday, April 28th we are brewing VIRTUAL CRUSH, the latest beer in our Reuben’s Crush series of hazy IPAs and the first to have the dry hop blend completely decided by you, virtually!
With the Coronavirus pandemic, the world has become virtual. In-person meetings are now on Zoom. A drink with friends is now a virtual happy hour. Poker with friends is now played online. We thought it would be fun to take recipe development into this brave, new virtual world, and ask you all to help brew this new beer. We want you to decide which hops we’ll dry hop Virtual Crush with!
Take a look at the descriptions of the following six hops we’ve got available for Virtual Crush, and then go to Instagram and leave a comment on our Virtual Crush post with your top 3 hops, in order of preference, from this list you want to see in the blend. We’ll rank all of your responses and create the blend from that!
On Sunday, May 2nd we’ll tally the public vote and make a final blend, which will be added as a dry hop to Virtual Crush on Monday, May 3rd, when we’ll publicly announce the winning blend. Expect to see Virtual Crush release in cans the week of May 18th.
Now, your hops to choose from:
Citra® – this is one of the most popular hops in craft beer right now, famous for citrusy aromas when used as a dry hop, as well as exceptional grapefruit, and tropical fruit flavors. This is the star of the show in Reuben’s Triple Crush, as well as Hop Tropic.
Mosaic ® – pleasantly hoppy, carrying flavors of mango, pine, citrus, and herbs. You’ll often see aromas of tropical and stone fruit. Mosaic is featured in Triumvirate, and you may have tried it in Reuben’s Mosaic Crush recently!
Azacca ® – Gives off a pleasant mix of tropical fruits kissed with citrus. On the palate it’s particularly spicy, with mango, pineapple, some pine, and tangerine-esque qualities. Azacca features in Azacca Crush of course, but also is part of the dry hop blend of Hazealicious.
Hophead Chinook – This unique expression of Chinook hops, one of the classic hops for West Coast IPAs, comes from Hophead Farms in Michigan. We recently featured it prominently in Reuben’s Chinook Crush. HHF Chinook has a distinct pineapple flavor with the pine backbone. It is delicious in IPAs for aroma and bittering.
Summer – It’s not difficult to see how the Australian hops variety, Summer, got its name after experiencing its sublime and delicate notes of apricot and melon. Others have even noted elements of grass, peach, passionfruit and citrus. Interestingly, it’s not in our Summer IPA!
Ella™ – The grower of Ella says that it’s “one of our best looking hops on the bine, and she backs it up in the brewery.” Ella is the half-sister of Galaxy, one of the most sought-after hops in the craft beer world. Our brewers describe incredible flavors of tropical fruits and grapefruit. You may have tried our first big use of this hop with Ella Hazy, which we released last July.